His disappointing 1976 King Kong apparently taught Dino De Laurentiis nothing about remakes. Though he spent $22 million and four months in Bora Bora to redo the 1937 Dorothy Lamour-Jon Hall picture, he might just as well have established a museum for Gauguin paintings. Such a gesture would have translated the life and color of Polynesia more accurately and created a tax deduction. But no, he dragged Ingmar Bergman's gifted cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, to the island, then did not permit him to shoot the scenery, preferring to dwell on the sighs and moans of a couple of tiresome lovers—a head chief, Hawaiian Dayton Ka'Ne, and the U.S. governor's daughter, Mia Farrow. (Small wonder Nykvist fell for Farrow off-camera; she looks gorgeous, even as an 18-year-old.) The script inspires howls at moments of theoretically high drama. When, after an interminable wait, the Great Storm comes, the great disappointment is that it doesn't sweep all previous footage out to sea. And take Dino with it. (PG)
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